


stolen dance

by intertwingular



Series: break down, now weep, build up breakfast (teen cap au) [1]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Mentions of Howling Commandos - Freeform, PTSD, Vague Canon Divergence, author hasn't seen agents of SHIELD, its a teen cap au, maria & phil try to raise a teenager...with mixed results, with all the child soldier implications THAT comes with
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-26
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-08-29 23:26:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16753471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/intertwingular/pseuds/intertwingular
Summary: steve rogers wants three (3) things:1. get out of SHIELD HQ2. visit Peggy in DC3. profit????or,in which being sixteen somehow makes adjusting to the new millennium harderandeasier at the same time.





	1. stoned in paradise

**Author's Note:**

> i have no excuses for this because this entire au started as an excuse to have steve wear one of those cap shield backpacks, but with the shield _actually_ being his shield. it's morphed into a series??somehow??? 
> 
> anyways, this should be two chapters (i hope.), and chapter two is almost done. the title (and chapter titles) are from stolen dance by milky chance, which is...a great song and a general bop. i love it??and it's also a BIG cap mood. 
> 
> anyways, enjoy! i'll see you down in the end notes.

Phil Coulson had been raised on Captain America. Pa had fought in World War II – not in the 107th, to ten-year-old Phil Coulson’s unending dismay – and had heard the stories about the sheer devastation the Howling Commandos brought down on Nazi forces.

“Everyone had heard about the Capt,” Pa had said, eyes far, _far_ away. It was the way he always got, talking about the war, but Ma had told Phil to just sit still and let Pa ramble. And it wasn’t that Phil minded, not really – at ten, all he’d wanted to be was just like Pa and the Captain. “Small guy, for someone who was s’posed to be larger than life…but that shield of his…swear, a little guy like that, hurling that shield across the battlefield…you knew you were saved, when you saw that shield coming.”

_Captain America._ He was Phil’s not-so-secret obsession, the one that hadn’t faded with age, like Ma had hoped it would. Phil still had that collector’s edition Captain America lunchbox in his apartment, still had all his trading cards and mint condition comics too. Phil had practically jumped at joining SHIELD when they’d come calling – half because the CIA was getting to be predictable, half because the honor of working with Peggy Carter and furthering Captain America’s legacy was everything Phil had ever dreamed of.

And here he was – the Arctic Circle, bundled up in about six million layers of Stark Tech thermals and the SHIELD issued parka he’d gotten back when they’d first recruited him. The Arctic Circle, where SHIELD excavation teams had finally unearthed the _Valkyrie,_ the plane that Captain America had brought down, saving millions of people worldwide.

Phil wasn’t sure what it was he expected they would find, but this was everything he’d ever dreamed of as a child. It was almost terrifying.

“ _Coulson!_ ” Maria came clomping down the icy hill, hair tied into a severe bun low on her head. “You have to come see what the excavators just uncovered – its…” She sighed, running a gloved hand down her face. “God, it’s _bad,_ Phil.”

Fighting his way to meet her halfway, Phil fell into step beside her. “How bad are we talking?” He asked, pulse quickening.

“Bad like this,” Maria finally said, leading him to the site.

There, lying in a chunk of ice, arms crossed beneath the shield, like a Pharaoh of old, had to be Captain America. The features were all there – the shield, still red, white and blue like Howard Stark’s plans always detailed, the blond hair and the special uniform _also_ drawn up like in Howard Stark’s records. But he wasn’t a man – there wasn’t a chiseled jaw, no air of fully grown nobility. He was short, just like how Pa had always described him, but the Captain was more than small. He couldn’t be older than a child, couldn’t be older than Phil’s own niece, who was barely 16 and all the more headstrong for it.

“My god,” Phil said, voice small, “he’s a child.”

_Captain America_ – all Phil had wanted to be when he was ten, all the way until high school, was nothing older than sixteen, maybe even younger, with how small he looked to be. Sixteen, fighting in one of the most horrifying conflicts in human history, leading an entire _command_ of men into the fray – _sixteen, sixteen, sixteen_ echoed through Phil’s mind, ricocheting off of years of hero-worship.

“He’s a _child,_ ” Phil choked out again, “God, what are we going to do?” 

* * *

Steve is sixteen, but he’s not stupid. There are a lot of things he knows that he should’ve done – _should’ve gone to school, should’ve stayed with Ma, should’ve caught_ – there are so many _should have done_ s bouncing around in his mind, that if he concentrates on them, Steve thinks he might go insane. He feels bigger than his body on most days – days like today.

There’s something wrong in the air, something that Steve just can’t touch. Maybe it’s the music playing in the background, Duke Ellington’s throaty voice coming through distorted and staticky, just like it always did through the radios at Camp Lehigh, late at night. Steve can almost touch that memory, Ma swirling around in her rose-colored skirts and white blouse, her hands tight around his own, Pa’s thick wedding band glinting on the chain around her neck.

_“We danced to this song,”_ She’d say, eyes so green and so far away, and they would sway, hand in hand, Ma’s breathing steady where his wasn’t. _“We danced to this song before your Pa left, darling…”_ And her voice would be so quiet and so sad, that Steve would twiddle the knobs on their cheap radio until the Andrews Sisters began to sing, and Ma would swing them into a jive.

But the sound is still too clear to be their crap radio, and the draft doesn’t blow through the windows like it always did back in Lehigh. Sitting up, Steve blinks once, twice, and fails not to flinch when a nurse pops out of what seems like nowhere. There’s no click of her uniform heels against linoleum floors, and she’s dressed oddly – the uniform Steve would know, even in the dark, is different too. The issued tie is too thick, more a men’s tie than the slim, woman’s tie Steve would help Ma iron straight; but for some reason, it’s the watch that catches Steve’s eye the most. It’s not a woman’s watch, not the slim design Doctor Erskine had given Ma for Christmas their first year; rather, the watch is chunky, links of silver forming the band. It’s a wealthy woman’s watch, more than anyone could hope to afford during the war.

“I’m glad to see you’re awake,” she says. Everything about her is strange, too close to what Steve knows, but too different to fool him. This entire farce puts him on edge, from the scratchy gramophone playing Duke Ellington, to the television playing an old Dodgers game that Peggy and Bucky had snuck him off Lehigh to see.

_Hydra,_ Steve’s tired mind thinks, half-wild with panic. He swallows around his dry throat as the woman’s cold eyes study him clinically.

“You’re in a war hospital, soldier,” the woman continues. Her low-heeled shoes still don’t click against the linoleum floors, and quietly, Steve draws himself up. There’s ice in his veins, and Steve is so cold. A part of him is still with Bucky, somewhere at the bottom of that snowy ravine, still in driving the _Valkyrie’s_ nose into the looming, icy depths of the Arctic Circle. “How are you feeling?”

“Where am I?” Steve croaks. The cot creaks beneath him as he tenses – and doesn’t miss how the fake nurse’s hand strays to her hip. She hasn’t hidden her pistol very well – the fabric of her skirt bulges around it, her fake uniform not made to hide a concealed weapon, and for a moment, they lock eyes.

They both know what’s coming.

Steve hurls himself out of the cot, marveling that they hadn’t thought to restrain him – stupid on their part, but good for him, so he shouldn’t be complaining – and shoves the woman to the side. The floor is cold beneath his bare feet, and as he barrels past the operatives beginning to crowd into the atrium of the strange building they’ve trapped him in, Steve feels the brisk air through the thin fabric of his shirt.

The sun is so bright. This world – this city, with its buildings that scrape the skies, no longer the bones that populated the New York City of Steve’s sickly childhood, is foreign to him. There are still people everywhere, still busy and going with the daily hustle, but everything is in technicolor. This is the New York City Steve left behind, the city that grew when he left it behind.

It’s bittersweet. There, in the distance, Steve can see the Empire State Building – there, just a speck on the horizon, the Chrysler. Where ever he is now – _whenever_ , Steve thinks, and the thought lingers longer than it should – the city Steve knew is just the shadow it casts.

“Captain.” It’s a call to attention, same tone, same snap as Colonel Phillips, and Steve stops. He tracks the man approaching out from the corner of his eye, takes in the eyepatch and the long black coat. _Black_ , Steve thinks, _like Gabe_ , and there’s a small flash of _pine trees in winter, cards in a trench, rough German in hushed tones_ – and he misses them all.

“Where am I?” Steve asks again, refusing to meet this strange man’s eye.

The man steps up beside him – and Steve is surrounded, black cars on every side, nothing like the cars he remembers, foreign and strange – hands in his pockets, gait slow and reassured. Steve hates it, all of it, more than he has the words to describe.

“Who are you, and where am I?” He asks again, when it’s becoming clear that no one is giving him answers.

“Nick Fury,” the man says, and answers nothing else. “Gave us quite a bit of trouble, Captain.”

It’s cold. Steve shoves his hands into his pockets, scuffing the blacktop with bare heels. “Yeah, well, figures that’d happen when you make such a shoddy fake,” Steve replies. He gestures to the hustle and bustle around them. “Well? Where am I?”

“Captain,” Fury says again, and Steve hates the title too, “welcome to the New York City, twenty-first century.”

* * *

So it’s the twenty-first century. Fine, Steve can work with that – like how he’d adjusted to going from living in a half-crumbling apartment building in the heart of Brooklyn, to the way he’d adjusted to commanding men ( _friends_ ) almost twice his height and age. He just needs time. Time to settle down. Time to grieve. Time to – _what?_ Steve thinks, _think more about how you watched him_ fall? _Time to think about how scared he looked as you all but let him go?_

Bucky is something Steve doesn’t want to think about – something Steve _can’t_ think about. So it’s just Steve, the SHIELD agents, and the thoughts Steve desperately wants to avoid, there in SHIELD HQ. It’s a locked room scenario, just Steve, these poor idiots SHIELD keeps assigning to him, and whatever exit they leave unattended that particular day.

Someone’s going to give, and it’s not going to be Steve.

“Kid – Captain, seriously, how long’re we gonna play this game?” Hawkeye – _Barton_ – isn’t bad. Steve still doesn’t understand what Barton does up in the vents, but Steve still hasn’t been able to figure out when Barton is in them. Point for the superspy, he supposes.

“I can keep this up all day,” Steve says, one leg already out the window. Today’s exit _du jour_ is the fourth story window – Steve might not have his shield anymore (it’s somewhere in the depths of R & D, and steve doesn’t want to give the lab rats down there the opportunity to poke and prod at him even more.), but he’s pretty sure that he can get away with a twisted ankle at the worst regardless.

“Seriously – Cap, that’s a _four-story drop,_ ” Barton stresses, hands on his hips. “Dude, Coulson’s going to kill me if you die – actually, scratch that, I’m dead regardless, because the cams definitely have you trying to parkour your way out the window.”

Steve shrugs. “Maybe they need to actually let me out of the compound,” he says. Steve likes Barton, but not _that much._ He’d still rather get out of the compound than save Barton from Agent Coulson’s wrath.

Barton sighs with far more exasperation than any _nineteen-but-really-I’m-closer-to-twenty_ year old should be able to muster. Steve gets it though – he feels the same most days. Granted, that’s towards SHIELD – and Barton too, by extension – but same difference.

“ _Look._ Cap – wait, can I call you Steve, get back to me on that – Coulson’s trying to argue your case before the Council. You’re sixteen, and now that the paperwork’s almost all through, we can’t legally keep you from school. So, you get what I’m saying?”

“So you’re saying they’re going to move me out of HQ? Leave me alone? Let me visit Peggy?” Steve hauls his leg out from the window and leans against the wall, arms crossed over his chest. He doesn’t want to call it hope, because Steve is sixteen, sure, but he feels so much older – and Steve knows enough about the Army and men like Nick Fury to know that there’s no real escaping the webs they weave.

“Yes, no, and uh, maybe?” Barton scratches his head as he gets to the last one, blowing out another sigh. “Look, Steve, SHIELD can’t just let you loose into the world. Like, you get that, right?”

Steve sighs and looks out at the city skyline. “Yeah, got it,” he mutters. “So, what are they going to do? Keep me in a compound while I’m in school?”

“Uh…” Barton goes a little white. “Well, uh, not exactly? Look, maybe just let Coulson talk to you about it when he gets time? I don’t think I’m the best one to explain, and also, like, I don’t know all the details.”

“You know I’m going to find out sooner or later, right?”

“Yeah,” Barton sighs – and maybe, _just a little bit_ , Steve feels sorry for him. Just a little bit though. Barton is cool, and the vent crawling could be useful, but at the end of the day, Barton is still SHIELD and SHIELD is still keeping Steve locked in the compound. Priorities, and all that.

“Yeah, kid, I know. Anyways!” He claps his hands. “You can go off compound with a chaperone today, so…”

Steve scowls. “You realize I probably know this city better than you do, right?”

“Yeah, I get that,” Barton says, “but have _you_ ever had sushi?”

It rings a bell, but Steve knows he’s barely been paying attention to the slew of agents trying to explain modern culture to him. “Uh…no?”

Barton nods, considering. “It’s raw fish.”

“Oh.” Steve remembers in snippets these days – SHIELD scientists say that the freeze, combined with unfinished growth jumbled his memories. It’s not like Steve _forgot_ anything, down there in the ice, but some memories are…fuzzy. They need triggers for him to remember them, and nothing – _nothing_ is more frustrating than not being able to recall the way Ma would dance with Pa on Christmas morning, or the day Peggy first taught him to shoot, hands steady around his.

It’s not a bad memory. Some of them leave Steve shaking, hands trembling and face pale and drawn – those are the ones that lead to the fall, to Bucky and the last of him Steve ever saw, face screwed with terror as he fell and fell and fell – but this one is warm. A little familiar.

_Jim_ , Steve thinks, and remembers a campfire in the heart of France, all the Howling Commandos huddling around it. Stray sparks snapped around them, and Jim leant forwards to speak, voice hushed.

“ _My grandmother,_ ” he’d said, and they’d all fallen quiet. Jim’s grandmother had died en route to an internment camp, and Jim had been closed-lipped about her for the entirety of the time Steve had known him. “ _before all of this, used to go to the fish market every Sunday morning at the crack of dawn. She’d lug this bucket full of ice with her, and barter down fish prices until she got the best she could for what we had._ ” It had been the Great Depression, Jim told them, the last time they’d all sat down on a Sunday to eat what his grandmother would barter for.

“Yeah,” Steve mutters, “I’ve heard of it.”

“Huh,” Barton says, linking his hands behind his head. “Didn’t think they had sushi back then.” He stares at Steve, head cocked and eyes considering for a moment – and for a moment, Steve could mistake Barton for Peggy, with her x-ray eyes and the way it felt she could read his minds sometimes. “Well, anyways. Lets go out for sushi today.”

Steve stares out the window for a second. He could jump out of it right now, could probably run all the way back to Brooklyn like this. He knows this city better than SHIELD, knows it from the nooks and crannies to the very heart of it, pulsing a half-asleep. Steve’s not naïve enough to think that he could disappear _forever_ , because he’s a symbol – and a powerful one, at that – but he could, for a day. Maybe a week, if he gets a train ticket to D.C (to _Peggy_ ).

“Yeah, why not,” he says instead, swiveling away from the window. “I’m hungry.”

There’s no running from this – not when Steve chose it for himself.


	2. chapter two: fetch back time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the adjustment period - part one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS IS BLOWING UP ON ME??like oh my god this is so much longer than i thought it would be.
> 
> either way, enjoy!

It takes a whole week for Coulson to actually make his way up to Steve’s cell – room. It’s a room, even if it’s all white and the only window in it is reinforced enough that even Steve can’t break through it (not that he’s tried, or anything) and there’s nothing personal about it. It’s nicer than his room in the Brooklyn apartment he’d shared with Ma, the one that always smelled like sickness and tobacco from the man next door. He’s got hot water around the clock and there’s no draft that blows through cracks in the walls.

It doesn’t change the fact that the room feels more like a cell on most days, though.

Agent Coulson peers through the open door – and Steve half expects him to be one of those people that say “knock-knock” before entering (Barton had given Steve his Netflix password and then had proceeded to play every single John Mulaney special. It had taken _half the day._ ) but then again, Agent Coulson is a SHIELD agent, even if Steve finds it oddly easy to forget most days.

“Hello, Steve,” Agent Coulson says, setting a duffel bag down by the foot of Steve’s cot. “How’re you doing today?” He tries for a smile – like he’s trying to pretend Steve somehow hasn’t heard about how large of a Captain America fanboy he was. Is. Whichever. SHIELD might be a spy agency, but that only meant that it was harder to hide anything from the even _more_ vicious rumor mill.

“Fine, thank you,” Steve replies, if only because his Ma raised him right. “Can I help you with something?”

Agent Coulson keeps trying to smile. Steve wonders if he needs to let him know that it’s distinctly grimace-like. “Well, I thought I’d let you know that you can start packing today.” He’s trying so hard, it makes Steve want to cringe.

It’s fine. Maybe Steve needs to stop being so rude to poor Coulson – Ma would’ve boxed his ears for attitude weeks ago, if he’s being completely honest.

“Thanks.” _God_ , it’s awkward. Steve sits, ramrod straight, and tries not to fidget with a loose thread in his starchy, collared shirt. They’re both uncomfortable now. Great. “Where’s SHIELD moving me?”

“Well, you’ve actually –” Steve can feel the dread pooling in his stomach. _Okay,_ he thinks, _this can’t be good_. Coulson clears his throat again. “Well, actually, you’ll be moving in with Agent Hill and I.”

_What._

“What?” Steve blurts, because he’d lost the entirety of his brain-to-mouth filter during the defrosting, apparently. _This man is qualified to take care of children?_ Steve thinks, because a SHIELD agent doesn’t seem like the best choice to raise a kid. Not that Steve is one.

“You’ll be our ward,” Agent Coulson says – and _thank God for that_ , Steve thinks, because absolutely no one would buy that Agent Coulson and Deputy Director Hill somehow managed to produce Steve Rogers, All-American Boy. “Maria – Agent Hill – and I have an apartment in the city, and you’ll live there. We figured we could take you on a school tour tomorrow.”

“You and Deputy Director Hill are _married_?” Steve asks, and immediately regrets _everything_ that led him to this point in his life. _Oh my God_ , he thinks, _why can’t I keep my mouth shut anymore._

“ _NO!_ ” Coulson spits. He looks as alarmed as Steve feels. “Maria is. She’s lovely, but – ah…” Steve can see Agent Coulson floundering for a way to fix this. “…she doesn’t quite, ah, swing my way,” he finishes lamely.

“Oh,” Steve says. “Oh, okay.”

“Right.” Steve watches as Agent Coulson smooths down his suit jacket a few times, eyes flickering to the gun holstered inside of his jacket. “Okay. Well, I’ll leave you to get packed then. Agent Hill and I will come to get you in…an hour.”

He wanders out, half in a daze, and Steve half expects Agent Coulson to bang headfirst into the doorframe as he goes.

_Right_ , Steve thinks. _Packing_. Steve wants to know what Agent Coulson thinks he’s going to do with an hour to pack his two remaining white t-shirts, one remaining pair of starched khakis, single toothbrush and rolled-up tube of mint toothpaste.

Steve stares at the duffel bag on the floor. _An hour_ , he thinks. _Okay._

* * *

If Phil paces _one more time_ , Maria is going to deck him in the nose.

“You gave him an _hour,_ ” she says, arms crossed over her chest, “to pack three things.”

“Yeah, I’m _aware,_ Maria,” Phil hisses, moving to make another pacing circuit. “I just – it was so _awkward_. I don’t know, I panicked!”

_This is a forty-year-old man,_ Maria thinks, despairingly, _brought down by his sixteen-year-old hero and the awkward atmosphere._ “Jesus Christ, Phil.” Maria wants a drink.

“ _ **I know.**_ ”

“Okay, well, stop pacing.” Maria taps her foot against the floor, and glares. Phil, _thank sweet, merciful baby Jesus,_ stops pacing. He swivels on his heel to awkwardly stare at her. Maria isn’t actually sure what Phil is trying to accomplish, but she thinks it _might_ be an attempt to ask for help.

“It’ll be _fine,_ ” Maria sighs. “He’s sixteen, Phil, and a national hero to boot. At most, we’ll need to attend parent-teacher conferences, and make sure he’s fed. Relax.”

Phil sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Can’t be worse than handling Clint, right?”

Maria snorts. It had taken a solid month and _three_ bar crawls, but she’d gotten the Budapest Incident out of Phil. “If he’s worse than Clint, then we’re both screwed.”

Behind them, the elevator dings. Phil’s shoulders go tense, and Maria cranes her head over one shoulder as Rogers step out from the elevator, SHEILD-issued duffel bag slung over one shoulder. _Captain America_ , she thinks. He doesn’t look like a famous war hero – in fact, Maria isn’t really sure that she’d peg him for anything other than a teenager if he didn’t carry himself like a soldier. There’s a rigidity in his shoulders that Maria sees in Nick, in Phil – in all their agents and staff poached from the military.

_Sixteen,_ Maria thinks. _Okay._

“Hey,” she says. “Nice to meet you. I’m Agent Hill.”

Steve takes her proffered hand and shakes it, clean and quick. “Nice to meet you, ma’am,” he says, and shifts the strap of the duffel higher up his shoulder. “Agent Coulson.”

“Ready to go?” Maria asks. “We’ve got a few school tours to hit today.”

“Oh – ah, okay.” She watches as he runs a nail down the ridged edges of the duffel strap. “After you, ma’am.”

Maria turns to raise an eyebrow at Phil. Phil, still an idiot, shrugs.

“Alright, let’s get going, then.”

Maria _really_ wants a drink.

* * *

They settle on LaGuardia High for school. Steve’s pretty sure that Agent Hill and Agent Coulson don’t really understand it – he doesn’t expect them to, either. But the smell of turpentine and clay is familiar – it smells like _home,_ when Ma scrounged together what little she had left after rent and food and the things that kept them alive, to buy Steve that cracking, dried watercolor set from the arts store on the other side of the city.

Steve misses Ma, and he misses Lehigh too, even though it never was home in the way their crumbling little box of an apartment in Brooklyn was. LaGuardia is _much_ nicer than anything Steve ever learned in (mostly the local Catholic church, with nuns who were a _little_ too slap-happy with their wooden rods), with facilities that he knows they never would’ve been able to have back in his time. There’s a _computer lab,_ with tech that feels like it should’ve been in the Stark Expo that Bucky and Peggy snuck him out to the night before Bucky’s squadron was deployed – and people _draw_ with computers now. Steve wants to draw with computers, he wants to feel he crumble of charcoal under his fingers, wants to be stained with paints that seep into his skin until it feels like he’s just Steve Rogers, Nurse Sarah Roger’s son, and that One Kid at Camp Lehigh.

It’ll never be 1939 again. Steve will never dance with Ma to Duke Ellington’s raspy voice, won’t learn to jitterbug with Peggy, or sneak cigarettes with Bucky under the starlight – his time, his people are gone. Ma is buried in Brooklyn, by their old church, Peggy is in DC, old with a memory that fades in and out, and Bucky…Bucky is dead, slipped from between Steve’s fingers in the cold Siberian landscape.

The thing is, that LaGuardia is _huge._ It’d be so easy to get lost in the crowd here, among the hundreds of students who learn, breathe and live here – and Steve likes that. He wants to feel anonymous again, less like the Captain and more of himself.

“Glasses?” Agent (“ _stop calling me Agent Hill. seriously, you’re making me feel old_.”) Hill asks. Her hair is out of its severe bun, tied low and loose. She looks younger like this, in workout leggings and a college sweatshirt, standing in front of the apartment fridge. “…Steve, you don’t _need_ glasses.”

“I know. I just think I need to…blend in more.” Steve rubs the back of his head sheepishly.

Agent Hill cocks her head. “…well, I guess. Can you give me a couple minutes to call Barton? Don’t give me that look, Rogers,” she says, hands on her hips, “SHIELD can’t have you out and about without eyes on you.”

_Yeah,_ Steve thinks sourly.

“Don’t worry,” Hill continues, hip-checking the fridge door shut, “it could be worse. You could be stuck with _Phil_.”

“You’re right,” Steve mutters, and sidles around her to grab the paperback he’d left on the island. It’s an interesting book – science fiction with a wartime story about a teenaged boy stuck leading it all, isn’t _that_ familiar – and as he parses through the prose, Steve can’t help but think about Bucky.

_He’d like this_ , Steve thinks. _He always liked science fiction._

Steve drags his knees beneath his chin and blows out a soft breath as melancholy ripples in like high tide. He stays like this, half-heartedly thumbing through _Ender’s Game_ , until Barton comes, loud and bright purple like always.

“Hey,” Barton says, gum snapping as he speaks. It’s a little gross. “So, Maria said we needed to take you clothes shopping?”

Steve tugs his khakis down his ankles. He’s been cycling through the same outfit for…however long he’s been out of ice, but Steve supposes that’s not hard when all of your clothing looks exactly the same. “Not really,” Steve says, sliding a bookmark into his spot. “I just need glasses.”

Barton gives him a strange look. “What – oh! Oh, Clark Kent effect, huh?”

“Yeah.” Steve tucks _Ender’s Game_ under his armpit. “I’m going to put this away before we go.”

“Sounds good,” Barton mutters, already tapping away at his StarkPhone. “I’m just gonna tell Nat to come in.”

_And that’s the we,_ Steve supposes. He doesn’t know much about the Black Widow – sure, Steve’s seen Agent Romanov around before, but as far as he knows, she’s been assigned on some long-term undercover assignment. (all of this is limited to what Steve can manage to wheedle out of Barton. which is a lot less than expected – Barton is a SHIELD spy for a reason.)

By the time he comes out of his room (still sparse, with a bed, dresser, bare cream walls and a window nook that Bucky and Ma would’ve cried over), Agent Romanov is standing in the living room. She and Agent Hill are talking quietly – both sharp eyed and vigilant, even in a particularly safe place. Agent Romanov is pretty, Steve won’t deny that – she’s pretty in a different way than Peggy, with her red hair and dark, slanting eyes. _Romanov_ is a Russian name, if Steve can remember correctly; Romanov doesn’t look all that Russian, though.

It’s none of Steve’s business. For now, anyways.

“Hey,” Agent Romanov says. Her voice is low-pitched with a slight rasp like those women jazz singers Ma was so fond of. “I’m Natasha.”

“Ma’am,” Steve replies. He shoves his hands into the pockets of his khakis, toeing into his shoes.

Agent Romanov raises an eyebrow at that, a thin, shrewd smile quirking her lips. Agent Barton sighs and shakes his head.

“Bring him back in one piece?” Agent Hill asks. It sounds despairing in a way that Steve only hears when she’s trying to deal with one of Agent Coulson’s more…embarrassing moments.

Agent Romanov laughs throatily. “No promises, Maria.”

Barton whistles. “We ready?”

“ _Please_ ,” Steve sighs.

And they’re off.

**Author's Note:**

> end pt. one! tada!!! 
> 
> to be honest, writing this took a lot longer than expected - i think because it was a little weird, trying to figure out how steve would fit into a teenaged mold, but i think i figured it out?? a little bit. age-wise, i've changed the breakdown a bit (a lot), so i'll be listing our important characters' ages. 
> 
> steve is 16, clint is 19 (almost 20), maria hill is around 32 here, coulson is around 38-40 (i haven't decided, and also age is weird up there so uh...take it i guess), and nat was born in the cold war, but red room alterations still make her age much slower so she looks to be about 21 (we'll say she's 21 too). 
> 
> as usual, please leave comments & kudos (motivation for me), and subscribe for chapter alerts! i'm also on my tumblr, [moonlitskin](https://www.moonlitskin.tumblr.com). chapter two should be up later this week OR next week, depending on my schedule.


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